


Under the Downs

by Evenlodes_Friend



Series: The Sussex Tales [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Arundel, Case Fic, Falling In Love, First Time, M/M, Not series 3/4 compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Romance, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 00:12:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10730199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evenlodes_Friend/pseuds/Evenlodes_Friend
Summary: Five years after they first meet, a case in rural Sussex changes John and Sherlock's life forever.





	1. A case in Sussex

**Author's Note:**

> First published in 2012 on FF and migrated over here because the interface there is so bad my friends couldn't read it.
> 
> Offered with heartfelt thanks to the wonderful Khorazir, who once upon a time made some beautiful illustrations for this work:  
> https://khorazir.tumblr.com/tagged/under-the-downs

            Before I start, a little preamble, just so’s you know, okay?  I’ve been Sherlock Holmes’s friend, flatmate and colleague for five years.  It doesn’t throw me anymore when people make assumptions about us, though it used to.  I don’t bother to correct them these days.  It’s too much work, anyway, and they never listen.  People think what they want to think.  Sherlock says they can think what they like.  We know the truth.  And we do.  It’s far more complicated than anyone would believe.  That’s how life tends to be, in my experience. 

            Anyway, it is an apparently simple case.  A sixteen year old boy has gone missing from his home in a village near Arundel in West Sussex.  The police have drawn a blank.  The parents, devoted Christians, are unwilling to accept the constabulary’s verdict that the boy has simply run away.  They call us in.

            I still have no idea why Sherlock accepted the case.  Even I can see that it is way below his incredible talents.  And the kid probably _has_ run away, after all.  That’s what sixteen year old boys do.  Whatever the reason, we pitch up on the narrow platform at Arundel’s pretty, geranium-swagged station at about half past four on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in August, the pair of us sweltering in the heat and bad tempered from the journey.  We take a taxi, not into the castle town, but along the narrow little valley road opposite the station to the village that was home to the missing child.  I have booked us into the local country house hotel.  There was no room at the pub.  A village wedding seems to require people to stay all week, the receptionist tells us; that, combined with the polo at Cowdray Park nearby, means they are completely booked solid.  And of course, she makes the usual assumption.  This time the consequences are not something we can ignore.

            ‘A double room?’

            ‘I’m sorry, sir, it’s all we have available.’

            ‘There’s obviously been a mix-up.  Perhaps someone in a twin would be willing to swap-‘

            ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ she says, as if to suggest such a thing is tantamount to an invitation to the Dark Arts.

            ‘Never mind, John,’ Sherlock huffs.  ‘It’s irrelevant.  We must get on.’

            Since there is no alternative, we lug our bags up the stairs.  The room is bright and airy, with a huge sash window that looks out over the garden and down the valley, where a tractor is labouring up the side of the hill like a flea on a dog’s back, bailing the last of the year’s straw.

            Sherlock flops onto the bed and bounces around.  ‘Mmm, reasonable.’

            ‘I’ll sleep in the floor then,’ I say, looking out at the Down.  I love its rounded shape.  It makes me feel strangely calm.

            ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he says.  ‘You’ll ruin your back.  I’ll sleep in the chair.’

            ‘Now who’s being ridiculous?  You won’t get any sleep and you’ll be insufferable.’

            There is no point in having this argument.  We both need our sleep.  We’re not young men anymore.  I may be the older party, but even Sherlock is beginning to notice the creaks of anno domini catching up with him these days.

            He gets up, thrashing his long limbs to gain purchase off the soft mattress.

            ‘Come on, let’s go and speak to the parents,’ he says.


	2. Meet the Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having arrived in Sussex, Sherlock and John set out to meet their clients, the parents of the missing boy.

            Mr and Mrs Allen are a quiet, soberly dressed couple who look older than their years.  They both have faces like Lancashire cheese, and I don’t know whether this is as a result of worry about the loss of their only child, or their normal appearance.  They live in a tiny cottage on the hillside, set back above the luxurious villas of the incomers who have populated the village.  Their front garden is devoted to vegetables, not flowers.  They seem a fiercely practical couple.

            Sherlock sits on their nubbly sofa and listens to their lament.  Their son, John-Matthew, a hyphenation which must have caused him a great deal of torture at the hands of his schoolmates, was a good boy, they say.  I ask them to describe that that means.  They detail an apparently endless list of church related activities that he undertook.  Sunday school, bible studies, prayer groups, healing services, visiting the sick, and youth praise events are among those which feature prominently.  John-Matthew was joyfully involved in his school’s church fellowship, and was busy promoting abstinence amongst his fellow pupils when he disappeared, just before the start of his GCSE exams.  They attend not the local Anglican village church, but the Baptist chapel in Arundel.  It must be hard being a Baptist in such an aggressively Catholic town, I point out.

‘We are called upon to witness to lost souls, that they might be redeemed,’ Mr Allen says righteously.  His wife nods in sweet agreement.

They have heard all the rational reasons why the boy might have run away – exam stress, adolescent depression, peer pressure, worries about his sexuality (which makes Mr Allen go purple in the face when mentioned).  When I ask if he ever argued with them, they look at me like I am the village idiot.

            ‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ Mrs Allen says in disbelief.

            Sherlock, tellingly, says nothing.

            When we are walking back down the hill towards the main road, Sherlock looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

            ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but _I’d_ have run away,’ he says.

            We stop off at the pub and lean against the bar with pints of the local treacly bitter in our hands.  Neither of us is inclined to talk much.  Our sympathy is, probably unjustly, with the absconded son.

            Back at the hotel, we eat dinner in the dining room by candle light, the pub having been too busy to fit us in – we have booked at table there for tomorrow night.

            ‘Though I doubt we’ll need to stay another night,’ Sherlock huffs, when I suggest it as a sensible precaution.

            The food at the hotel is good.  The crystal glasses sparkle and the roses gleam waxy in their little vase between us.  Jasmine and nicotiana cluster around the open French windows, filling the room with their heavy evening scent. 

The waitress, a girl probably no older than John-Matthew, is attentive.  I ask her if she knew the lad.  She makes an awkward face.

‘Not in your group of friends,’ I suggest.

She goes rather pink.  ‘He was a bit weird, if you know what I mean.’  Her heavy blonde hair flops over her face.

‘How so?’   Sherlock asks.

‘Well, like, all that religion and stuff.  And he was, well, he smelled a bit.’

‘Not popular then?’

She giggles uncomfortably and slips back to the kitchen, leaving us to draw our own conclusions.

‘Thank God I never have to be 16 again,’ I say, digging into my steak.  It is rare, perfectly done for my taste.  Sherlock purses his lips as he watches me eat the bloody meat.

‘I don’t know how you can,’ he says.

‘This, from the man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “squeamish”.’

He has chosen the chicken with parma ham.  It is suitably abstemious.

After our meal we take our coffee on the terrace.  The garden slopes steeply down towards the meadow beyond where I watched the tractor earlier.  The hedge that separates the two is heavy with bramble blossom and dog rose.  The sun has set behind the Down, and bats are hunting, whirring over our heads as we sit in comfortable wicker chairs.

‘So what do you think?’ I ask my friend.  ‘About the boy, I mean?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly he ran away.  But I am intrigued to know where he has gone, aren’t you?  I think he is with someone he knows.  I doubt a boy with so little experience of the world would be willing to step out into it without help.’

‘So we go and see the police tomorrow?’

‘And examine the area where he was last seen.’

‘Lucky I hired a car then,’ I say, and crunch on the rattafia biscuit that came with my coffee.

‘Hmmm,’ he responds, and I know that he is miles away, as usual, somewhere deep in the velvet shadows.


	3. In the Velvet Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys settle down for their first night in the same bed.

Sharing a bed with someone for the first time, even someone you know as well as I do Sherlock, is something of a minefield.  Especially when both of you are the same sex and also heterosexual.  And Sherlock is heterosexual, before you ask - I know that because of Irene Adler.  (But we never speak of her.)

We each change in the en suite bathroom, to preserve our privacy.  I take a shower.  It’s been a hot day, and my skin feels sticky and salty.  Besides, my shoulder hurts a lot more these days than I let on, and the hot water massages it.  When I come out of the bathroom in my pyjamas, scrubbing the back of my head with a towel, Sherlock is lounging on the top of the bedcovers in his nightwear, flicking through the channels on the telly with an irritated expression.  He loves to abuse popular programmes, loves to feel he is above them.  We sit and watch an episode of ‘Holby City’, which has me huffing about the bad medicine and inaccurate depiction of the medical profession, and him growling about the appalling dialogue and plot, which he can see through in the blink of an eye.  So we both enjoy ourselves.

‘We’re turning into Grumpy Old Men,’ I tell him.

‘Speak for yourself.  I’m still Lads Behaving Badly.’

‘Men.’

‘What?’

‘It’s Men Behaving Badly.’

‘Whatever.  You’d know.’  He slopes off to clean his teeth.  This is weirdly domestic, I realise.  We are like an old married couple, bickering gently.

 

There is a cry in the night.  I open my eyes and realise it isn’t me.  Which is something of a turn-up for the books, because believe me, it’s _alway_ s me.  But not tonight.  Tonight it is the man shivering beside me, rolled up into a ball with his back to me.  And yes, we are both heterosexual men, but I do what you do when you care for somebody, regardless.  I reach out and I pull him into my arms.  That shaking body of a man.  I take him and hold him, and he tucks his head into the space between my breastbone and my jaw, and he sobs, and I coo and hush and press kisses to his dark curls until the shaking subsides and the breathing steadies, and even though my t-shirt is now soaked through and I am awake in the middle of the fucking night, I don’t care, I really don’t. 

Because, you see, I love him.

All that stuff I was saying about being heterosexual, being straight, not being in a relationship?  We both knew almost immediately that it was bollocks.  Yes, we are both straight.  Well, I am, and I’m pretty sure he is too.  But you know when you’ve met the love of your life, and it doesn’t have anything to do with what hangs between their legs.

‘I dreamt I lost you,’ he whimpers, and presses his face into the curve of my shoulder.  He clings to me all the tighter.

‘I’m here,’ I tell him softly.  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

It’s odd that he has this dream so often.  It should be me having it.  And the truth is, I did have it a lot after the Reichenbach thing.  I had repeated nightmares in which I saw him falling.  At least it was a change from the dreams of the war.  But when he came home, they went.  Since then, _he’s_ been having the nightmares.  He dreams I am lost to him.  It is his greatest fear.  Perhaps his only fear.  Until tonight, I only knew because he told me about it, once, when he was drunk.  And I’ve sometimes heard him cry out in the darkness, when I was wakeful myself.  I didn’t go to him, and I am flooded with regret about that now.  I can see that I should have gone to him, held him.  .  But as he lies against me, trembling and sad, I realise I must let that regret go, just as I let go of my anger at him for leaving me.  I pull him across my body, so that he is almost on top of me, and he presses his cheek to my chest and lets out a halting sigh.  I stroke his hair.  It smells so sweet – it always does.  I think he still uses that same brand of shampoo because he knows I like it.

‘Don’t ever leave me,’ he whimpers.

‘I won’t,’ I promise, and mean it with every cell in my poor, pathetic, aging body.

 

 

Later, an owl breaks into my dreams.  It’s weird, shivering cry draws me into consciousness, and I realise that Sherlock is wrapped around me, snoring gently.  (That’s another thing people don’t expect about Sherlock, he snores dreadfully, to the point that I am beginning to suspect sleep apnoea as the root of his recurrent insomnia.  I can hear him through the floor of my bedroom at 221B.  Snores like a bloody hog.  It’s that stumpy little nose of his.)  He has fastened onto me like a cross between a giant sloth and a limpet.  And you know what?  It feels fantastic.

I’ve only ever slept intimately with women.  And by that I mean sleeping, rather than sex – although I’ve never had sex with a man either.  I never thought I would like sleeping with a man, sharing a bed, resting close to another man this way.  Sharing a bed is far more intimate than just shagging, in my opinion.  Shagging is intimate, yes, but sharing a bed is sharing territory, which is something men have evolved to fight against.  It also means allowing another person to see you unconscious, without all your societal roles intact.  In the raw, so to speak.  The Sherlock I am seeing in the raw right now is needy and tender and loving.  It is the Sherlock that is inside, that he never reveals to anyone else, and rarely even to me.

My eyes prick.

I wish I could explain how much I love him.   I wish I could make him see.  I think he knows.  I’m sure he does.  He must, after all these years together.  But still.  It would be nice to tell him.  Just once.


	4. Legwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a hot car and a grumpy detective.

We are woken by the hotel phone.  
‘Dr Watson, your hire car has just been delivered. Could you come down to reception to complete the forms?’  
I sit up in bed and grumble, rub my eyes. Sherlock moans and turns over. He’s invariably useless first thing in the morning. He’s an owl, I’m a lark. Not that I vault out of bed, either. I pull on some clothes, pick up my wallet from the bedside table and plod downstairs to meet the young man in the crisp navy blazer who has come to hand over my hire car. When I get back to our room, the sashes have been flung open to let the morning air in, and I can hear the shower running. I flop onto my back on the bed and close my eyes to doze until Sherlock has finished in the bathroom. I must have dropped into a really deep sleep because the next thing I know I am waking with a shock at something dripping on my face.  
‘What the-‘  
It is Sherlock. Or rather Sherlock’s wet hair, dripping on my cheek. He is bending over me with a worried expression.  
‘I thought you’d passed out,’ he says.  
‘Need…. bacon…’I mug theatrically, and he laughs off his concern.  
‘So long as its not sausage you need,’ he giggles.  
I get up, flick my towel at his arse, making him yelp, and shut the bathroom door behind me.

 

As I stand under the shower, I can see out through the big sash window. I gaze up at the Down, at its curve. It is so soothing to me. It makes me think of the back of a whale as it breaks the surface, graceful and fluid. It connects to me in a very emotional way. And when I say it connects to me, I mean it. It’s not the other way around. I feel like this landscape cups me in its palm, enfolding me in its loving peace. There is something almost Zen about it. I look up at that hill and think, I could grow old here.  
Wrapped in my bathrobe, I plod out again to find some clothes. Sherlock is lying on the bed, fingers peaked under his chin, staring at the ceiling. Thinking mode. I know better than to inquire what progress he is making. I potter about, getting my things together, putting on my watch. I dress in the bathroom, and when I come out, he is sitting up, waiting for me. I think he is going to say something about the nightmare, but instead he says:  
‘You like it here, don’t you?’  
‘It’s a nice place.’  
‘More than that.’  
‘How much can you like a place, Sherlock?’  
‘Enough to retire here?’  
‘You want to retire?’  
‘We can’t chase villains over rooftops all our lives. Sooner or later, they’ll start being faster than we are.’  
‘Good point,’ I nod. ‘But didn’t Doctor Johnson say: “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”’  
‘Did you go to Barts with this man? He sounds rather facile.’  
I try not to groan. After all this time, I’m still not used to the things Sherlock has deleted from his hard drive.  
‘Breakfast,’ I tell him.

 

It’s a hot drive out to Chichester to see the detective in charge of John-Matthew Allen’s case, and we sit in traffic on the A27 for most of it. Sherlock isn’t very good at heat. Cold is his natural element. I’m not sure his body is capable of regulating temperature very well. The more he sweats, the crabbier he gets. By the time we arrive at the broken-down 1970s office block that forms the home of Sussex Constabulary’s detection corps, he is the foulest mood possible.  
‘Try to be nice,’ I warn him as we slam the car doors.  
‘I’m always nice.’  
‘You know what I mean.’  
He rolls his eyes. ‘You do all the talking then.’  
Detective Sergeant Stubbs is obviously sitting out the last few months of his service behind a desk, and is not particularly interested in John-Matthew Allen’s case.  
‘I looked into it, but I get about a dozen or so of these a month. Teenage kids. Runaways. That’s what they do. Especially a family like that. Religion. When was the last time you saw a boy of 16 into all that?’ He shakes his shiny head. ‘He’s probably buggered off to Brighton to sell his bum and discover himself. Most of ‘em do.’  
‘Still, he’s below the age of consent,’ I point out.  
‘You walk round one of them clubs down there and tell me who isn’t?’ He flips through the file in front of him. ‘I can make you copies of the salient points if you really want?’  
‘Thanks, that would be most helpful.’  
‘You’re wasting your time, though,’ he says.  
‘His parents just want to know he’s okay,’ Sherlock says, breaking his silence. I look at him, shocked. Unexpected empathy. Rare, but he shows it more these days. I’m ashamed to say I feel a prickle of pride. That’s my influence, you see. I’m doing this to him. Making him more human.  
‘’Course they do. I’m just saying kids run away for a reason, and if you ask me, it’s usually to get away from something.’ He slouches off to the photocopier.  
Stomping back across the baking car park, Sherlock growls, ‘Ape!’  
‘He must get so many of these cases, Sherlock,’ I say, unwilling to give the man a break, but understanding his attitude.  
‘The kid could be dead in a ditch, and he’d never know! Just because he’s 16 doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a right to justice.’  
I look at him over the roof of the car as I unlock it. ‘What is it with you and this case?’  
He huffs. ‘You drive, I’ll read.’  
‘Where are we going?’  
‘Back to Arundel.’


	5. Meltdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John has a very tasty lunch and a sexual identity crisis.

            The Bay Tree Café is in a side street.  We sit in the back garden.  Actually, to call it a garden is a bit of a misnomer.  It’s a back yard, but since the building is on the side of the hill, it has an excellent view of the bottom of the town and the river.  The food is excellent, and roses flower on the pergola that shades us from the late lunchtime sun.  Sherlock is absorbed in the file while I eat.

            ‘This is excellent, Sherlock,’ I tell him.  ‘You really should eat something.’

            ‘Mmmm,’ he says and sips at his iced tea without looking up.  Thank goodness we are booked at the pub later, I think, getting back to my pigeon breast and puy lentil salad.  Need to get food inside him to keep his brain firing at optimum levels.  It’s a habit I’ve forced him into over the years – before we met, he would go for days without eating.  Now I think he has come to terms with the fact that food might actually be useful fuel for his immense mind.  But he’s taken some persuading.

            I watch him as he reads.  Frowning.  His curls flop over his face.  There are fragile lines around his eyes now, little crinkles etched over the tops of his cheekbones that weren’t there when we met.  For a moment I wonder what he will look like as an old man.  I imagine his hair white, swept back from his forehead, cheeks as sculpted as ever, eyebrows bristling like barbed wire.  His mouth will still be beautiful, that pinched upper lip, the square, cushioned lower one.  And something happens to me then that I never expected to experience, never dreamed would happen.

            Those lips.  I want to kiss them.

            ‘John.’

            ‘Hmm?’

            ‘You’re staring.  It’s distracting.’

            ‘Oh.  Sorry.’

            Jesus, Sherlock, I want to kiss you.  I want to stand up and grab your lapels and drag you across this table and snog you senseless right here, in the middle of this pretty little restaurant garden, surrounded by all these people, who will stare, and I don’t care, because I want to kiss you so much.

            ‘You’re still doing it.’  He doesn’t look up when he says it.  Granted, he is politer now than he used to be, but even so.  I look down at my lentils, little greenish rabbit droppings in a swirl of rocket and creamy yoghurt dressing on the white disc of my plate.  I push the pigeon breast about with my fork, and even that reminds me of his lower lip, the voluptuously full one, the one I want to bite and suck so badly – I’ve never kissed a woman like that, slobbering, messy, but I want to kiss him that way.  Dear God.

            I clear my throat.  ‘Ehem.  Er.  Just need to.  Right.’  He doesn’t look up.  ‘Right.’  I get up.  He still doesn’t get up, doesn’t even look up.  ‘Need some air.’

            ‘You’re outside as it is.’

            ‘Er, space.  Need some space.  Can you-‘

            ‘I’ll get the bill. Go and walk it off.’  He sighs as if he is talking to an irritating child.

I bolt.  Two hundred yards down the road, walking on the cool, shadowy side, out of the sun, feeling the stretch of my thighs as I stride along, I stop and lurch against the whitewashed wall of a Georgian villa, and press my hand over my mouth.  My knees are turning to jelly.  I press my back flat to the wall, and slide down it till my bum is on the pavement.  I am shaking.  What the hell is happening to me?

I love him.  I’ve never pretended otherwise.  At least not since he came home.  We both knew the truth then.  We couldn’t live without each other.  I’d been insane with grief when he walked through the door that Thursday night.  How many times had I thought about blowing my brains out with the Sig I kept in my bedside drawer?  How many times had I longed just for the smell of him?  And then he was there, shaking, on his knees, begging me to take him back, to be his friend, if only I would let him explain.

I gave in.  He explained.  I listened.  I hit him. 

I told him that the difference between bravery and stupidity was a very thin line, mostly comprising of whether you survive or not.  I told him I knew this for certain because I’d seen it happen to other men on the battle field.  I knew because it happened to me.  I was lucky enough to survive it.  Most people don’t.  But I know what it really was.  Idiocy and luck.  That’s all.  Sherlock had been trying to be brave, to save us all.  He got away with it.  That didn’t mean I didn’t know exactly what he’d been doing up there on that bloody roof.  Which was, not to put too fine a point on it, being an idiot.  Still, he gave his life to save mine.  I’d have done the same.  That was why I took him back.  That and the fact that he is as elemental to me as the air I breathe.  More, perhaps. 

But I never expected this.

I’m straight, for God’s sake.

I stare up the hill at the looming shape of the Catholic cathedral.  It is beautiful, Gothic, and above all, pointy.  Seems like a perfect metaphor for what loving Sherlock feels like.  I love him.  I know he loves me.  But it was never physical.  Until now.  How can sharing a bed for one night have changed everything.  Changed the integral polarities of my desires.

A woman is walking up the street towards me.  She is dressed in white linen trousers and a white strappy top.  The garments cling to her figure.  She is probably in her forties, tanned and blonde, beautiful, one of those high-maintenance women you find in wealthy heritage towns like this.  Her hips swing.  Her makeup is subtle, elegant, a slick of lipstick, mascara, and naked skin that gleams with health.  She is enjoying the sun and the feel of her body moving through it.

I desire her.

There’s nothing wrong me, I realise.  I’d fuck her in a minute, given the chance.  She’s gorgeous. 

She glances at me as she passes, smiles.  Her teeth are creamy and even.  She wears a little silver heart on a chain around her neck, so simple, emphasising the sweep of her collar bones, and it makes me want her even more.  Crouching against the cool wall, I realise I am half hard just watching her retreating rear as she walks away, the luscious globes of her buttocks giggling under the thin cloth.  She must be wearing a thong because I can see everything, and I’m pretty sure she knows it.

No, there is nothing wrong with me.  I am still straight.

I’m just desperately in love with my best friend.

My phone bleeps.

_When you have finished having your panic attack, may we please get on?  SH._

            Thank you, Sherlock, for your kind understanding and empathy.

            I struggle to my feet, feeling a little more grounded for the heterosexual frisson of the passing woman with whom I have, by now, constructed an entire fantasy affair, including fucking in the loos at the Bay Tree Café. 

I check my watch.  It is half past two.  Okay, better get on with it.  I’ll have to face him sooner or later anyway.  Better make it sooner and get it over with.  And I walk stiffly back along the street, hoping my erection isn’t too obvious, and trying to think about a particularly nasty anatomy lecture from my undergraduate days to distract myself. 


	6. Boys will be Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we discover more about John Matthew.

            Joshua Bennett lives with his parents in a plush barn conversion at the end of the village nearest Arundel.  They are the classic middle class, wealthy family. 

            Mrs Bennett shows us into her garden room and invites us to sit on white linen sofas.

            ‘Josh is a very quiet boy,’ she says in a gentle voice.  She is blonde, very similar to the woman I lusted after in the street earlier, well kept and well dressed.  ‘He doesn’t make friends easily.  He and John-Matthew just seemed to get on together.’

            ‘But you had reservations about their friendship,’ I say, raising an eyebrow to probe.  As usual, I am asking the bulk of the questions because Sherlock is looking around the place like a magpie in search of sparkly things.  Mrs Bennett casts him a curious look but still answers my question.

            ‘The Allens are, well, a bit eccentric, shall we say?’

            ‘Very religious, I understand.’

            ‘I’m not sure that they really approved of John-Matthew associating with Josh, but they were in the same class, and its hard, really, when you aren’t quite like the other kids...’

            Her words trail off into a regretful silence.

            ‘They were both at the Grammar school?’

            ‘Yes, John-Matthew got a scholarship.  His parents struggled a bit, you know, the uniform and everything.  It all adds up, and I don’t think _he_ earns much.’

            ‘And you pay full fees?’

            ‘Yes, all our three went there.  My husband Malcolm went there too, so he feels it’s only right.’

            ‘Do you think being the poor kid in the class made John-Matthew particularly alienated?’

            ‘Oh, well, it definitely set him apart, of course.’

            Just then, the front door bangs, and the hall fills with the petulant sounds of a teenager coming home from school.

            ‘Would you like to talk to Josh?’

            ‘That would be very helpful, if he’s willing.’

            ‘I’m sure we’d be happy to do anything if it helps John-Matthew.  Joshy?’  She calls to her son in a soppy, sing-sing voice.  ‘Come on in, there’s some gentlemen here who want to talk to you about John-Matthew!’

            Josh comes in and flops down on the sofa opposite us, beside his mother.  He eyes us sullenly from under his dark fringe.  His pout is impressive, even for a sixteen-year-old.  There is a vague air of unwashed t-shirt about him.  Oh, I remember those years fondly.

            I introduce us both.

            Sherlock gives the boy an enigmatic nod, and receives another in return.  For a moment I wonder if I am seeing another Sherlock sitting before me, whether Sherlock himself is looking back in time, through the lens of memory, and seeing himself.  Then he gets up in an explosion of limbs and coaxes Mrs Bennett into showing him the garden.

            ‘Not too subtle, your mate,’ Josh observes.

            ‘Subtle as a brick through a windscreen,’ I agree.  ‘We’re trying to find John-Matthew and we wondered if you could help.’

            ‘You the detective, or him?’  He speaks with that bastard cockney accent that many middle class teenagers affect.

            ‘Oh, him,’ I say, before I’ve even thought about it.  ‘But sometimes I ask the questions.’

            ‘Because he’s as subtle as a brick, right?’

            I nod, smile.  ‘Yep.’

            ‘What do you want to know?’

            ‘You were friends with John-Matthew?’

            ‘Yeah.’

            ‘Good friends?’

            ‘’Spose.  We like the same things.  Music.  Books.  Jonny likes to read a lot.’

            ‘Was he worried about anything in particular, do you know?’

            ‘Not worried as such.  Apart from the usual things.’

            ‘Like?’

            ‘You know.  How often you can masturbate before you get RSI.  How you get a girl to fuck you, that kinda thing.’

            I grin and nod.  I remember that too.  ‘Wasn’t worried about sex, then? I mean, more than anybody your age would be?’

            ‘You mean, was he gay?’  He gives me a shrewd look.  ‘No.  Definitely not.’

            ‘Sure?’

            ‘Yep.  Wanna ask me how I know?’

            ‘Because you are?’

            He grins.

            I say, ‘Fair enough.’

            He relaxes back into the sofa.  ‘Jonny just wanted know about stuff really.  He was interested in everything.  Chemistry.  Botany.  Religion.  Philosophy.  Quantum mechanics.’

            ‘Really?’

            ‘Yeah, like, he read all that Stephen Hawking stuff when he was about 12.  I don’t get it really, but he was really into it.  That’s why people didn’t like him much at school.  Too clever for ‘em.’

            ‘Yes, I can imagine.’  My thoughts are not far away, on another such person, and when I glance over my shoulder, I can see him talking animatedly with Mrs Bennett by a clump of purple salvias that are buzzing thickly with insects.

            ‘I think he just wanted to find out,’ Josh goes on, following my look.  ‘Like your mate.  Wanted to find out about the world.  His mum and dad weren’t too keen on him doing that.  They wanted him to have a good education, yeah, but like, it was only so’s he could go and be a missionary somewhere.  Jonny dint want to be a missionary.’

            ‘No, I don’t suppose he did.’  Not if he was interested in quantum mechanics, at any rate.

            He fiddles with a stray thread that has worked its way out from under the piping on the arm of the sofa. 

            ‘So you and him,’ he says.  ‘Are you, like, mates?’

            ‘Yeah.’

            ‘Best mates.’

            ‘I suppose so, yes.’

            He nods.  ‘Like me and Jonny.  He’s all I’ve got.’

            ‘Yeah,’ I agree, seeing this boy’s youthful wisdom.  ‘Yes, Sherlock’s all I’ve got too.’

            And then Josh looks up at me, and for a moment I think he will cry.  ‘When you find him,’ he says, ‘tell him I said hi.’

            ‘I will.’

            At that moment, Sherlock and Mrs Bennett come back into the house, chattering away about the amount of traffic on the A27 these days.  Josh looks at me and rolls his eyes comically, and I can’t help laughing.

            Sherlock perches on the edge of the sofa and looks at the lad carefully.

            ‘So, Josh, where did you last see John-Matthew?’

            Josh examines him just as shrewdly in return.  ‘Usually they ask, _when_ did I last see him.’

            Sherlock sits back and raises an eyebrow.  He peaks his fingertips together.

            ‘And why do you think that is?’

            ‘Because they want to know how long he’s been gone.  To create a time frame for his activities.  In case he’s already dead.’

            I’m impressed.  So is Sherlock, apparently.  He nods sagely.

            ‘Do you think he’s dead?’

            ‘Nope.’

            ‘Why not?’

            ‘You want to know if I know where he was going.  I don’t.  I just think he went off to discover stuff.  Find out more about the world.  Knowing Jonny, he’s thought about it a lot, planned it.  Got himself a place to live and everything.  Knowing Jonny, you won’t find him either.  He’s clever.  He’ll have worked it all out.’

            Sherlock nods, presses his index fingers to his voluptuous lips (don’t think about those lips, John, don’t!)  He knows everybody in the room is looking at him now, and he just loves that.

            ‘What we have here, I think, is a young man who is extremely talented.  One day, Master Bennett, you will make one of this country’s best forensic psychologists, if I am not mistaken.’

            Josh eyes him warily, and then says, ‘last I saw of him, he was up Tipsy Copse, on the Down.  He used to go there to read.  Get out of the house.  Get away from the hymns.’

            ‘Hymns?’ I ask, puzzled.

            ‘Yeah, his mum and dad sing hymns all the time, they say it scares off the demons.’

            ‘Oh rational thought!’ Sherlock crows with delight.  ‘Isn’t it adorable!’


	7. Tipsy Copse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock and John take a ramble in the woods.

            The footpath skirts a field still thick with golden wheat that rustles in a dry way as we pass.  A few last poppies dot the field margins.  There is a hedge on our right, mostly hawthorn and blackthorn, already thick with sloes.  We startle rabbits, and they scoot off into the crops, their white tails flashing.  On the top of the hill is a thicket of ancient woodland, oaks, chestnut, ash and lime.  There are a few tyre tracks in the dusty depressions on the path, places where bikes have been on earlier, wetter days.  They are not a deep enough tread for serious mountain bikers.  These are the transport of the village kids who come up here to escape and be teenagers.

            We are dripping with sweat when we reach the shade of the copse.  Even Sherlock has rolled up his shirt-sleeves as far as his biceps.  He has a dew of perspiration across his downy upper lip.  I have to look away.

            A few yards in, we find evidence of habitation.  Beer bottles.  Alcopop bottles.  Fag ends, both ready-made and roll-ups.  Empty cardboard packets, cigarettes and condoms.  No needles, though, because these are nice, middle class kids.  They won’t get into drugs until they get to University, and even then, it won’t be the injecting kind. 

            ‘What do you think?’

            Sherlock pokes about a bit, and then lets out a heavy sigh.  ‘Not here.  These are the popular kids.’

            He’s right of course.  John-Matthew would not be welcome here, and the in-crowd would not venture any further into the woods, although they would not admit they are afraid to.

            There is a little rabbit path through the nettles, scarcely visible, but Sherlock finds it.  We push through, over dried out ditches and banks, evidence of habitation long since gone.  In places there is bracken.  All the while, the leaves whisper above us.  There is something different about woodlands on chalk, I realise, something primal.  I feel like I am walking back in time.

            We plod on until we have almost reached the far side of the copse.  From here, where the bank edges the oaken margins, you can see down the other side, towards the High Downs behind Worthing and Brighton, great undulating ridges of white floury rock breaking the surface in places.  In the distance a tractor is humming.  Further down the valley, horses are at pasture.  The sky is a clear, pale blue, sun-lightened and shimmering.  The heat haze is clearer down this side of the hill, even though we are looking east, away from the sinking sun.

            Sherlock starts striding about until he finds what he wants, a fallen trunk that time and animals have worn smooth and flat.  It is covered with the corpses of candles and nightlights.  There is a small jam-jar filled with a fistful of wilting meadow flowers.  There are wax dribbles, and stumps of joss.  A little altar.

            ‘Hmmm.’

            ‘What are you thinking?’

            ‘Well, Josh said John-Matthew wanted to find things out, didn’t he?  Maybe he was experimenting.  Religiously.’

            ‘What kind of religion experiments like this,’ I say, picking a lump of congealed wax up in my fingers.  ‘Do you think he was into Satanism, or something?’

            Sherlock crouches down and rummages in the dusty hollow under the tree.  He pulls out a plastic carrier bag.  Something is wrapped inside.  He glances in.

            ‘Yes, as I thought.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘John-Matthew wanted to find things out.  The Down drew him out.  Just like it has you, John.’

            ‘I don’t understand, what?’

            ‘It’s hot.  I need a shower.  Let’s go back to the hotel and get ready for dinner.’

            And he sets off back down the slope again, leaving me bewildered in front of the meagre altar.

            ‘Sherlock?’  I call after him, but he has his head back, and I know he won’t answer.  The arrogant sod.

 

            The shower is drumming water on the bottom of the bath.  Sherlock is humming to himself in his sweet, mellow baritone.  He sings Gilbert and Sullivan in the shower.  That’s another thing people would never guess about him.  Little morsels.  One day, I sometimes threaten when he is being especially objectionable, I will write an exposé on his secret habits.  He’ll sulk for a while and then laugh at me, because he knows I won’t tell the world he picks his nose when he’s watching University Challenge.

            While I wait for my turn, I look at the book he found under the tree trunk.  It is a nice copy, somewhat well-thumbed and liberally annotated in a crabbed, dark blue and rather smudgy hand, of a standard pagan text, ‘Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner’ by Scott Cunningham.  I know nothing about these matters, but Sherlock says it is a book that every Pagan will have in their library.  I haven’t asked him how he knows. 

Reading a few pages, it turns out to be nothing like I expected.  It is gentle, rather sweet, even playful, like a guidebook on playing witches for small girls, but with a slightly Buddhist spin.  There are recipes for spells, different incenses and potions, and rites for various times of the year.  It seems just about as far from what the Allens believe as it is possible to go.  There is a sticky label on the back, above the bar code.  It says: ‘Castle Magic, gifts of spirit and mystery’ and an address in the main street of Arundel.

Sherlock comes out of the bathroom, dripping.  He is wearing just his towel, anchored around his waist rather precariously.  His chest hair is drizzled flat.  His nipples are erect.  Water beads on his beautiful skin.  I have to look away.

‘Have you seen my green shirt?’

‘Did you bring it?’

            ‘Good point.’

            ‘So this book?’

            ‘Mmm?’  He is rooting about in his suitcase.  His rump is emphasised by the clinging towel.  I examine the curtain fabric on the other side of the room.

            ‘We going to the shop tomorrow, then?’

            ‘Seems like the sensible next step.’

            ‘You know where this is going, don’t you?’

            ‘I don’t want to spoil the excitement for you.’

            ‘So are we staying another night?  After tonight, I mean?  Or going back?’

            ‘Another night,’ he says, finally dragging out the rumpled shirt.  ‘Oh God, do you think they have an iron?’

            I end up ironing his shirt.


	8. Warm Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an excellent supper is enjoyed, and devotion is admitted to.

            The food at the pub is excellent.  The clientele is the monied type - quite a few older men in tweed jackets and shirts open too low, and with flushed faces; women with starched hairstyles, dressed in Jaeger.  We sit in a quiet corner and look at one another over a candle.  It reminds me of that first night at Angelo’s, when he made a fuss about bringing us a candle.  More romantic, he insisted, even though I in turn insisted we weren’t on a date.  I don’t think I have sat with Sherlock at a restaurant table since without someone bringing us a romantic candle.

            I have the sea bass, because it is too hot to eat steak.  Sherlock steals morsels off my plate.  He has the scallops.  He eats delicately, nibbling.  I can tell he isn’t really interested, just putting on a show for me.  I order the assiette of sweets.  He is more keen to steal mouthfuls of that.  Which is why I ordered it.  You have to be cunning to get calories inside him.

            When we come out into the balmy night air, we are one bottle of heavy red wine, two brandies and one Irish coffee to the wind, and weaving very slightly.  The tarmac on the road is still baking, slightly tacky from the heat of the day.  The moon is out, half full, but the sky is clear and the light silvers everything, including Sherlock’s aristrocratic profile.

            It is a short walk back to the hotel, but we dawdle.  There are a few people about, taking evening strolls, walking their dogs before bed, making the most of the cool evening.  It is pleasant to be out, to bid passers-by a good evening, to enjoy their village by moonlight.

            Halfway there, Sherlock confuses me.  I suddenly find he is not walking beside me, and when I turn around, he is standing in the middle of the road, looking a bit stunned.

            ‘What?  What is it?’  I retrace my steps until I am standing in front of him.  A soft night breeze ruffles the late valerian growing out of the cracks in the stone wall beside us.  The air is fragrant with rose and night-scented stocks.

            ‘You,’ he whispers.

            ‘Me what?’

            ‘You’re the one.’

            I stare at him.  I have no idea what he’s on about.

            ‘You’re the _one_ ,’ he repeats, going more slowly and emphasising the last word because clearly I am an idiot.

            ‘The one _what_?’  (I emphasise my own last word.)

            ‘The _one_.  Just you, John.  Only ever you.’

            He steps forward and wraps his arms around my neck, rests his head against my forehead with a sigh.

            ‘There was never anyone but you.’

            I close my eyes.  I can feel the heat of his body, the weight of his arms resting on my shoulders.  His hot breath smells faintly fishy from the scallops.  He has never come this close to articulating his feelings for me before and I am sure it’s not a coincidence.  It is the Down, watching over us, benevolent.  This place is doing something to us, changing us.

            ‘Just you, Sherlock,’ I whisper back.  ‘Only you, for the rest of my life.’

            He hugs me.  We stand there, entwined, until a car comes around the corner and we have to scurry to the side of the road to let it pass.  I look up at him once it has gone, and find his cheekbone is sculpted by moonlit shadow, his lower lip soft and slightly loose.  He flings his arm around my shoulder and we walk down the road together like that.  The height difference works this way – my shoulder fits neatly under his armpit, his arm is at the right level to rest over my shoulder, and my arm loops comfortably around his narrow waist.  The flesh under my hand feels firm and fluid at the same time.  I love the way it shifts under my fingers.

 

            We are rather drunk, and it is a hot night.  The bedroom is stultifying.  He strips without shame in front of me, flops onto the bed in just his boxers.  In the bathroom, I change into my t-shirt and shorts.  He knows better than to try and persuade me to shed my last upper layer, even in this heat.  We lie on top of the bedding with the windows wide open, listening to the sounds of the night, the tips of our fingers touching.

            ‘I love you,’ I whisper into the velvet shadows.

            ‘I know,’ he replies.


	9. Intimacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally kisses are exchanged, and John admits to some inhibitions

            There is a cool morning breeze when I wake, and a heavy weight on my chest.  His head.  His arm is flopped over my body, his hand splayed out on the soft mound of my belly, his thigh across my own.  He breathes steadily in little gusts.  I close my eyes again to savour the sensation.  I wonder how long it will be before we lie like this again, after we leave this village under the Down, after we go home.  I wonder what it will be like to return to the monastic sanctity of my own bed after sharing this with him, this small, modest miracle of life.  I wonder how he would react if I asked him to share my bed permanently.  I never know with him.  He can be so hard to predict sometimes.  Maybe he will cling to his privacy, his own territory.

            He murmurs something, moves against me, and that’s when I feel it.  A hard ridge of turgid flesh digs into my hip.

            Sherlock has morning wood.

            Okay, yes, I am a doctor and it shouldn’t surprise me, but the idea of him as an even remotely sexual being bends my brain into backbreaking contortions.

            And then of course, this new wonder has a knock-on effect on me.  Like a domino, I fall.  Or rather, stand.  In a second, I feel myself hardening. Oh, God, how am I going to get away with this?  The mouth thing yesterday was embarrassing enough, but this is a whole new world of cringe-making physical phenomena.

            He nuzzles my chest.  He is clearly beginning to wake.  I’ve got to get myself out of this.  I could just gently slide from under him while he is still half asleep and he’ll never know.  If I could-

            ‘Stop wriggling,’ he grumbles.

            Right, that’s it, I’m going to be discovered, and there is nothing I can do about it.  I lie there, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, every muscle stiff with anxiety.

            ‘Dear God,’ he huffs.  ‘What _is_ wrong with you this morning?’

            His pale eyes open, blink against my chin, lashes brushing the skin, making a little tingle that goes straight to my cock.  I hold my breath.  Too late.  He has obviously just worked it out.

            ‘Oh.’

            He lifts his head, looks down at me, while I try to stare hard at the lampshade in the middle of the ceiling.

            ‘John?’

            I don’t turn my head.

            His hand lifts from my chest, touches my jaw, turns it for me since I won’t turn it myself.  Now I can’t help looking into his face.  Dear God, I’m finished now, I really am.

            He searches.  Then he twitches his hips very slightly.  I groan and screw up my eyes.

            When I look again, he is grinning.  He leans forward, brushes the side of his nose against mine.  Those voluptuous lips are so close now, so tempting.

            I snap.

            I reach up and grab at the back of his head, pull him down, and that amazing mouth meets mine.

            So soft, so flavoursome.  His lips slide over my own, and part, and my tongue crosses the gulf to dance with his.  He opens his mouth and moans, and grinds his hips once more against my side, and I am lost.  I grab his body and roll him onto his back, so that now I am on top of him, my legs between his, and his torso undulates beneath me deliciously.

            We kiss.  And kiss.  And go on kissing.

            I never thought he would want this.  I never thought _I_ would want this.  Now it comes to it, it’s the most fantastic sensation I’ve had in years, possibly ever.  Our bellies chafe, our cocks jostle together, and it is thrilling.  His hands slide up and down my back, and he moans, deep in his throat.  He grabs a handful of my buttock and sinks those long, intelligent fingers into the muscle, and it is like being plugged into the mains.  I gasp and squirm.  He gulps at my mouth, and I at his.  Heat is blooming up through my belly.  I kick off the sheet and we writhe in the soft draft coming through the window.  I reach down and take a handful of his copious arse for myself, and he gasps and throws his head back into the pillow, exposing the length of his neck to me. 

There is a pair of little moles halfway down his throat that have always fascinated me.  They look a little like the puncture wounds that feeding vampires leave in Hammer Horror movies.  I’ve wanted to touch them for so long.  Now he presents them to me, virtually on a plate, and I can’t help but lick them hungrily.  He starts to tremble.

            ‘Oh, John!’

            His thighs slide up around my hips and grip.  My cock leaps in response.  I pull back, look down at him, survey the wonder of Sherlock aroused.  It is dazzling.  His pupils are so dilated that his eyes look entirely black.  A luscious, rosy bloom has spread across his chest.  The pulse in his neck throbs close to the surface.  There are pink patches on the crests of his cheekbones.  His mouth has a looseness about it, puffy from my kisses.  I kiss him again, hard, thrust my tongue into his mouth, love the vibration of the moan he emits.  Between my legs, I am throbbing.  Tingles are spreading out all across my belly and down my inner thighs.  My backside is alight with sensation, something I have never experienced before.  My head is spinning with need.  I grind against him, wanting.

            ‘Yes!’ he gasps.

            We struggle out of our boxers, release our erections.  I thrust against him, feeling the silk of his shaft as it bumps mine.

            ‘Oh!’ he cries, his lips making a perfect, voluptuous circle.

            Then suddenly, he grabs my shoulders and pushes me over onto my back.  He kneels up between my legs and looks down at me.  His muscular chest heaves.  For a moment, he hesitates, and then he reaches out and tugs at the hem of my t-shirt, his eyes wrestling with mine.

            ‘No.’

            ‘Please?’

            ‘You don’t understand.’

            ‘I need you.’  He slips his fingers just underneath, strokes the skin there, making me tremble.

            I don’t want him to see.

            It has been five years since I met him.  Nearly six since I was shot.  In that time, I have slept with a number of women.  Not one of them has seen me without a t-shirt.  Having sex while clothed, at least on the top half of the body, is not as bothersome as you might think, though it can be rather frustrating.  Still, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my own privacy, and for my partners’ peace of mind.  I don’t want them to see what is under there.

            Now I know, lying here, looking up at the love of my life, that it is extremely unlikely that I will ever sleep with another woman.  Apart from those conducting my medical treatment, no one has seen my wound.  I have concealed it from my lovers because I feared that they would be repulsed.  I have concealed it from Sherlock because I know he will read it and know what it means. 

He has never seen me naked in all these years.  I am careful to cover up, to wear bath robes and pyjamas at all times.  I don’t want him to know.  He is conversant with anatomy.  He has seen enough fatal wounds to understand it.  I can’t let him see the truth.

            But what I want doesn’t seem to figure anymore.

            He wants me.  All of me.  Regardless.  I can see it in his eyes.  This is the turning-point in our relationship that I have both longed for and feared.  He has let down his last defences.  Time I let mine down too.  I don’t know whether he will be able to accept what he sees.  But he must see it.

            I sit up, reach up with my right hand, grab the collar at the back of my neck and pull my t-shirt over my head.  There I stop, with the jersey still stretched across my shoulders and chest.  I look into his eyes.  I still don’t want to do this.  I plead with everything I have left.

            ‘Don’t make me do this.’

            ‘Please,’ he begs.

            Resigned, I pull the cloth the rest of the way and drop it on the floor by the bed.  And then I look at him and wait for the consequences.

            What I don’t want him to see, what he will easily read in the gnarled and puckered tissue of my shoulder, is that I should not be here.  I should have died.  In fact, I did die, twice, in theatre, as they wrestled to patch the artery that had been severed.  In every technical respect, I am a dead man walking.  There is absolutely no scientific reason why I survived.  Every surgeon who worked on me has pronounced it a miracle.  And as far as I can see, there is no reason for it apart from this:

            I was meant to be here.

            I was destined to be with Sherlock.

            Sherlock is the reason I survived, even though neither of us knew it then.

            Fate has a great sense of humour.  I hope to God he’ll get her joke.

           


	10. Action!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock exhibits unexpected tact, and equally unexpected sexual talents...

            He takes a minute to look carefully, to really see.  It is what I’d expect if him.  Then his eyes brim.

            ‘Oh, love,’ he whispers.  And I know he has understood.

            He reaches out, hesitates, fingers hovering close.  ‘Can I touch you?’

            ‘Just be gentle,’ I tell him.  I am shaking.  The emotion of this is threatening to overwhelm us both.

            The tips of his fingers brush what is left of my skin.  I am scored and scarred there, in the depression between collarbone and breast.  What I didn’t expect is that the shattered nerve endings there are not merely heightened to pain, but to all sensation.  When he touches me with his beautiful fingers, it blows my mind.

            ‘Oh, God, Sherlock!’ I moan.

            He snatches back his hand.  ‘Did I hurt you?’

            ‘No, no, its-‘  I can barely speak.  My whole body is singing with the ghost of his tingling touch.

            He pulls me onto his lap.  I straddle his thighs with his arm looped around my waist, marvelling at the roughness of the hair on his thighs rubbing against mine.  Everything is so intense.  The tips of our cocks touch, and electricity arcs between, making us both shudder and gasp.  I feel dizzy with want.  He leans his head down, and kisses the knotted flesh, and I moan.  Then he starts to lick, like a tigress laving her cub, as if his saliva will miraculously heal the ravaged skin.  But we’ve had all the miracles we are going to get, I think, at least in that area.  Still, the feeling of his tongue makes my shoulders curl in, cupping him, and I hang onto his shoulder blades and let the sensations consume me.

            I find myself bucking my hips, grinding up against his cock, wanting something I can’t even name, straining towards a union that defies me still.  He kisses and licks and nips his way up my neck and finds my mouth again.  His hands grip my buttocks, and knead.

            I moan.  ‘Oh, God, Sherlock!’

            He growls.

            I look down between us and see his cockhead, slick with precome, beautiful and glossy and pink and proud, with the foreskin retracted.   Before I know what I am doing, my hand has slipped between our bodies and wrapped around both our erections, clamping the shafts together.  Instinct takes over.  We both pump upwards, into my fist.

            ‘Fuck,’ he pants.

            He pushes me onto my back and spreads my legs to lie between them.  His skin is cool on my chest.  He kisses his way down along my collar bone, nuzzles further, finds a nipple and sucks.  Then kisses his way across to the other.  My cock presses into the softness of his belly as he lies over me, and I can’t help thrusting.  My balls are aching now, the need is so great, and every little nip sends an agonising thrill south.  I need and want release with every cell in my body.

            His mouth progresses, rasping and sucking, finding the tender places on my stomach and hips, the sensitive spots that make me squeal or moan.  He works his tongue along my hip bone and down my groin, tugging at my belly hair with his teeth.  He nudges between my legs to lick ribbons of pleasure up my inner thighs, until I am shaking with desire.  He works his way back up then, until he reaches my scrotum, and butts it gently with his nose, breathing deeply the musky odours of my crevices.  He sucks one of my testes into his mouth, and it is at this point that I lose any power of speech that I might have retained.  He seems to like the taste of that one, rolling it on his tongue, because then he tries the other one.  I become aware that I am making an odd keening noise in the base of my throat.  No one has ever done anything like this to me.  Bits of me are singing that I never thought could be sexually responsive.  Especially down there.

            Having apparently finished his hors-d’oeuvres, he gets down to the main event.  He licks his way up my shaft, tasting the salty flesh, tickling the throbbing veins with the tip of his tongue.  He laps at the head, and when I look down I see a thin, glassy thread of precome linking my cockhead with his lower lip.  He looks up at me and there is a familiar impish glint in his eye.  He takes the glans fully into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, sucking gently, and I make the quantum leap into heaven.

            Lost to the world, lost to everything other than this man’s divinely talented mouth, this man who has always been my friend, who is now my lover, I drift on a sea of sensation.  I don’t know why I thought that mouth, that tongue, those lips, could be anything other than talented.  Clever, clever Sherlock.  In my mind’s eye, I suddenly glimpse the future, our future; hours and years of horizontal ecstasy stretch out before me, of us losing ourselves in one another’s bodies, and I mentally take a moment to kick myself for being such a bloody fool as to actually put this off.

            And just as I reach the point where I think this couldn’t get any better, Sherlock does the unthinkable.  He stretches out that magnificent throat, opens wide, and takes me right up to the hilt.


	11. And finally, the nitty-gritty.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys finally get properly down to it.

            ‘Oh, Jesus fucking wept!’ I cry, almost leaping off the bed, but he hangs onto my hips and rides the shock out, and then starts doing unbelievable things with his epiglottis, and fuck me if Sherlock Holmes isn’t actually deep throating me!

            This has never happened to me before. Do I need to say that?  I mean, who the fuck _has_ it happened to?  Apart from in porn movies?  He seems to have absolutely no gag reflex at all.  It’s all I can do not to fuck his face with everything I have.  That’s what my pelvis is telling me to do.  And my cock.  My poor cock, which has passed through heaven and reached the upper regions of Nirvana, and to which Sherlock is showing absolutely no mercy whatsoever.

            My head is light now, because pretty much all the blood in my body is contained in the few cubic inches of my genitals.  I know this can’t last.  I can feel the tension gathering in the root of my cock, and the pit of my belly.  I try to groan, try to warn him, but the words just won’t come out.  I am tongue-tied by that clever tongue. 

When it comes, my climax takes even me by surprise, violently bursting out of me with even less warning than I had expected.  I writhe and scream his name, and it feels like my balls are being ripped off with silk.  I ejaculate comprehensively down his long, sinuous throat while he clings to my pelvis, fastened on like a limpet and emitting a droning noise that denotes sexual delight.  He has to push me down with all his weight to stop me bucking both of us off the bed.  He sucks me dry and then slurps off me, smacking his lips, and I lie there, whimpering with shock and pleasure.  He slides up the bed and lies at my side, watching my chest heave, watching me suck air in through my gaping mouth like a beached fish, helpless and boneless.

            When I have begun to calm, I blink at him, my eyes able to focus once more.

            ‘Fuck, Sherlock, are you trying to kill me?’ I croak.

            He bobs his eyebrows naughtily.  ‘I presume that means the experiment provided a successful outcome?’

            ‘Experiment?’

            ‘Was it good?’

            ‘There are no words.’

            ‘Try and find a few.’

            ‘It was absolutely fucking mind-blowingly fantastic.’

            He rests his head down on the pillow, looking smug.  ‘Those will do.’

            ‘I’ve never come that hard in my entire life,’ I pant, finding my language centres again.  ‘I mean, seriously, Sherlock, fuck! I mean, what was that?  It was like fucking honey and silk and velvet and-‘

            He kisses me, ostensibly for affection, but I think secretly he means to shut me up.  In which he succeeds.  I taste myself on his tongue, and I am gobsmacked.  Briefly.  Then I croak a bit.

            ‘I came down your throat,’ I manage.

            ‘Yes, you did.’

            ‘I tried to warn you.’

            ‘It was delicious.  You are delicious.’

            ‘You didn’t mind?’

            ‘Did I look like I minded?’

            I stare at him.  The question is now dawning on me.  I know that Sherlock never does anything unless he will be utterly perfect at it.  The thing is, you don’t learn to deep throat by reading a book.

            ‘Ah,’ he says.  ‘You believed Mycroft’s quips about my being a virgin.’

            My cheeks start to burn.  ‘You said it wasn’t your area.’

            ‘I said _relationships_ were not my area.  There is a difference.’

            ‘So, I mean, you are – ?’

            ‘I am bisexual.  Does that bother you?’

            ‘Hardly – seeing as I just profited by it considerably, while you are as yet uncared-for.’  I pull him against me, and kiss him.

            ‘You don’t have to,’ he breathes.

            ‘Look, this is new to me, but I don’t want you going without.’  I slide my hand down his body, over his belly, and find him taut and twitching.  He sighs.

            ‘Oh, John.’ 

He closes his eyes.

‘Tell me what you like,’ I whisper.

‘I like you.’  He thrusts his hips up against my downward stroke.  ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Good?’

‘You have no idea how often I’ve imagined you doing this to me.’

This seems highly unlikely.  ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ he whimpers.  ‘Oh yes, do it, do it!’

A hand job doesn’t seem much of a return after the expertise he has given me, but its all I can offer right now.  I’ve never touched another man’s cock in anything other than a clinical situation, after all.  But his is incredible, thrilling and hard and silken-skinned, and I want it more than I have words to explain.  I love the weight of it in my palm, and the texture of it.  I love the way he writhes against my touch, panting and moaning.  I spit on my fingers to add to the lubrication, though he is making plenty of his own – his glans is all but dripping – and work him with both hands, one on the shaft, up and down with a slight twist at the top of the upward stroke, the other on the head, massaging the foreskin over the sensitive crown.  I love the way he squirms and begs for it, the desperate pleasure I am giving him.  Helpless in the face of his most primal drives, he is now fucking my fists.  His balls are packed tightly against the base of his shaft.  When he comes, they pump and spasm, and I am entranced at the sight of something I know about, but have never actually seen.  His whole body arches up off the bed, only the crown of his head and the backs of his heels still in contact.  Long, pearly ribbons of come shoot out of him, splattering his chest and belly, and spilling over my knuckles.  He cries out _my name_.  Mine.

            After we have lain there a while, my hands riveted to his rapidly softening member, I decide to take action, but when I get up, he moans and grabs at me.

            ‘Don’t go?’

            ‘Just getting a cloth to clean you up,’ I tell him gently, and though he whimpers, he lets me go.  I come back from the bathroom with a warm, wet flannel and tenderly wipe him down, leaving a sheen of water on his pale skin.  I drop the used cloth on the floor and bestow a little kiss on the tip of his cock, which twitches in response.  Then I climb back into bed with him, and fold him into my arms.

            ‘I love you, John,’ he breathes as he drifts into sleep.

            And I weep with joy.


	12. Castle Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get back to the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, any opinions about Paganism are John's and not mine.

            The main street in Arundel is very steep.  And my knees are like jelly.  It’s a hard climb from the car park at the foot of the hill to Castle Magic, the shop where John-Matthew bought the book we found.  The shop window is predictably full of huge chunks of rock amethyst, and incredibly naff statuettes of Celtic gods and fairies.  When we open the door, a little bell chimes.  The air is thick with the scent of joss.  Tinkly New Age music plays in the background.  A woman dressed, again predictably, in purple Indian cotton comes out of a back room through a bead curtain.  Her hair is long, and greying at the temples.

            ‘Do you need any help?’ she smiles decorously.   ‘We’ve got some lovely new books on Iron John which might interest you.’

            Sherlock takes out John-Matthew’s book and shows it to her.  ‘We’re trying to find the boy you sold this to,’ he says, pointing out the neatly inscribed name inside the front cover.  She starts looking worried.

            ‘You aren’t police, are you?’

            I try to distract myself from my shaky knees and the erotic memories drifting behind my eyes by browsing the bookshelves.  I pick up a book on Iron John.  The subtitle is ‘Queer Paganism for the Aquarian Age.’  Do we have a neon sign over our heads or something?  When I turn back to the counter, the woman is looking distinctly harassed.  Sherlock has been working his personal magic.

            ‘He’s a good boy,’ she is saying.  ‘He just wants to find out more about the world, that’s all.’

            ‘No one wants to stop him doing that,’ I interject, putting on my ‘sympathetic doctor’ expression.  ‘But his parents are really worried about him.  You can imagine.  We’d just like to establish that he’s safe, that’s all.’

            She looks torn.  ‘I’m bound by my oath of silence, you see,’ she explains, grinding the heels of her hands together.  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help.  It’s just that there could be serious karmic consequences if I break the confidentiality of the Coven.’

            I tread hard on Sherlock’s foot when he opens his mouth to speak.  He gives me a filthy look in reply.

            ‘I’m sure you’d be rewarded equally for helping his parents. His mum is making herself quite ill with worry.’

            She nods sympathetically.  ‘She’s such a funny woman.  They have such odd ideas, you know.  Peculiar.  But I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.  Losing a child.’

            ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t,’ Sherlock agrees, forbearing to remark on ‘odd ideas.’

            ‘We wouldn’t tell them where he was if he didn’t want us to,’ I tell her.  ‘It would be up to him to contact them if he wished.  We just want to be able to reassure them that he is safe, that’s all.’

            She sighs.  ‘I told him not to leave without at least giving them some idea of a way to find him, a phone number or something, but he wouldn’t have it.  He said he wouldn’t have a chance of getting away if he didn’t keep it a secret. He seemed to think they’d send him off somewhere, a mission or something, if he told them.’

            ‘Did you help him?’

            ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t be involved.  I told him it was cruel and wrong.  Against Coven rules.  Remember the Charge of the Goddess, I said.  “An it harm none”, Jonny.’  She looked extremely sad.  ‘He wouldn’t listen.  Next thing I knew, it was all over the evening news that he’d disappeared.’

            ‘You didn’t go to the police?’ Sherlock asked her, leaning on the counter and looking through the glass at the silver rings.

            ‘Well, I didn’t know anything, did I?  I certainly didn’t know where he’d gone off to.’

            ‘And then there was your vow.’

            ‘Well, yes.’

            ‘Do you have any idea where we might look for him,’ I pressed her gently. 

            She frowned.  ‘You mustn’t say anything,’ she said.

            ‘Your secret is safe with us,’ Sherlock said.

            She sighed, obviously feeling she had put up enough of a fight to satisfy any karmic forces that she’d had no choice.

            ‘You know the road to Amberley, up round the north of town?  Just before you get to the museum, there’s a bridge over the river.  Walk north from there.  You might find some travellers who could help.’

            ‘Thank you so much,’ I tell her.  ‘We promise we will respect his wishes, and we’ll leave your name out of it.’  Not that we knew it, of course, but my saying it made her feel better.

            ‘He’s a good lad, you know,’ she re-emphasised.  ‘Can I help you with anything else?’

            ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that,’ Sherlock began.

            It took me nearly twenty minutes to get him out of that shop.  He bought up pretty much every book she had on Tantric sex.  I caught sight of myself in the shop window as we left.  My face was beetroot.


	13. The Escapee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long, hot trudge along the Arun valley yields results.

            I have to sit on the bonnet of the car and wait outside the public conveniences for Sherlock, who seems notably compromised in the bladder department this morning.  He’s been three times since we got into town.  The sun is getting high and it will be lunchtime soon.  Luckily I’m not hungry, because if we are proposing to hike up the river, lunchtime will be a distant memory before we get near a café again.  Presently Sherlock ambles out and crosses the road, stopping the traffic as usual.  He never goes anywhere without parting the Red Sea.  I find myself smiling at him fondly as we climb back into the car and set off for the ring road.

            The route to Amberley takes us around the north of the town, with an epic view back across the Arun river valley and out towards the High Downs, the same view as from Tipsy copse, where we found the altar and the book.  The sea glitters navy blue in the farthest distance.  We wend our way down the hill and park behind the little café by the bridge.  It is just as the woman in the Castle Magic shop described. 

It is hot.  Baking, in fact.  I’ve yomped miles in worse heat, in Iraq for instance, but today I’m older and my knees aren’t up to it anymore.  Sex takes it out of your knees – an under acknowledged fact.  And right now, Sherlock has managed to fuck my knees up good and proper.  Not that I wouldn’t do the same again given the chance (and I sincerely hope I _will_ be given the chance), but right now, it doesn’t seem a sensible pre-hike strategy.

I buy a couple of bottles of mineral water at the café and we set off up the river, along a path that runs atop the flood prevention bank on its edge.  The water squirms backwards and forwards across the valley, in loops dotted with clumps of willow and silver birch.  The sun is scorching on my shoulders.  Sherlock walks ahead of me.  I can see the skin on the back of his neck starting to burn and curse myself for not insisting on buying some sunblock while we were in town.  I labour on, sweating dark patches into my shirt, whilst he has merely rolled up his sleeves to expose his sinuous forearms, and looks as cool and stylish as ever.  My eyes keep sliding down his back to his magnificent backside, watching it flex hypnotically inside his impeccably cut trousers.

‘Stop it,’ he calls back to me, a knowing tone in his voice.

‘I can’t help it,’ I reply.  ‘It’s like one of those executive toys.  You know, the sort with the balls that clack together.’

‘No clacking balls, John,’ he smirks, glancing over his shoulder.  ‘At least, not until we find the boy.’

It’s very hard to walk a long distance along a public footpath with fucked knees and a raging erection.

Eventually, thank whatever Gods watch over this pagan valley, we find a leafy glade where some tents and a tepee have been set up.  A string of rather shabby washing hangs between the trees.  Several small children run around naked and muddy at the water’s edge.  A young woman in a sarong is crouching in the water, pointing out minnows to them.

‘Excuse me,’ I call to her.  She stands up.  Her bleached hair is knotted crudely atop her skull.  Her skin is tanned, her belly striped with the stretch-marks of pregnancy, but she seems delightfully un-self-conscious.  It is not till she stands up, of course, that I realise she is naked from the waist up, but by then it is too late.  And it really doesn’t help my poor genitals. 

‘Can I help you?’  She has a slight west-country burr.  I try not to look at her lovely breasts.

‘We’re looking for Jonny,’ Sherlock smiles.  ‘Rhiannon sent us.’

She points out a ragged tent on the margins of the camp.  ‘Mind where you step.’

A woolly dog, one of several hanging around, comes up and sniffs our trouser legs as we pick our way across the encampment.  Nobody else seems to be around.

‘Who’s Rhiannon?’ I hiss at Sherlock as we walk.

‘The witch in the shop,’ he hisses back out of the side of his mouth.

‘How did you find that out?’

‘Magic.’  He wiggles his eyebrows at me.

Outside the tent, a boy is sitting on an old blanket.  He has a drum in his hands, the shallow kind they play in Ireland.  He taps it half-heartedly.  He looks up as we approach and rolls his eyes.

‘I knew you’d find me in the end,’ he says.

‘Jonny?’  Sherlock asks.  ‘Can we sit down?’

Jonny looks sulky but allows us to join him. 

‘You the filth?’

            ‘No.  Just freelance detectives,’ I tell him, ignoring Sherlock’s scowl.

‘I’m not going back,’ he tells us, defiantly.

‘We’re not asking you to,’ I say.

‘Oh, come off it!’

‘Your parents merely wanted us to make sure you were alive and well,’ Sherlock explains, sounding surprisingly sympathetic, so that I wonder if he is remembering having run away from home himself.

‘They’re worried about you.’

He has the grace to look sorry.  ‘I didn’t want to hurt them,’ he says.  ‘I just wanted to get some space.’

‘To find things out,’ Sherlock agrees.  ‘Everybody needs that.’

John-Matthew looks at him shrewdly.  It’s the same clever look that Josh Bennett had.

We sit back on our palms in the sun.  The leaves rustle softly.  It really is very lovely here.  If you wanted to find yourself, I can’t think of a better place to do it.

Then I remember my promise.  ‘Josh said to say hi.’

John-Matthew examines me closely with a knowing look a thousand years old.  I’ve seen that look so many times before, across the breakfast table.

Presently the woman comes over, still partially naked, like an English amazon, carrying a tray on which are three enamel mugs of tea.

‘Thought you might like something,’ she says and, leaving the tray with us, she sways away on her swinging hips.

John-Matthew clearly feels he must act the host.  He passes out the tea.  It is strong, but not bad and certainly very refreshing after that long walk.  We sit for a little longer in silence.

‘They want me to go to bible college,’ he says.

‘What do you want to do?’ I ask him.

He shrugs.  ‘Maybe Uni.  Maybe travel a bit.  Not sure yet.  There’s so much to choose from, in’t there?’

We nod.  Frankly I wouldn’t be a teenager now if you paid me.  ‘Too many choices,’ I agree.

‘Yeah,’ he says, and sips his tea.  ‘Anyway, I don’t want to go back there.  At least not if they’re going to go on about bible college and serving the Lord through mission and all that.  I thought about it, and I don’t think that’s me, y’know?’

‘Did you tell them that?  Did you argue with them?’

‘No point.  Not even worth discussing.  Thing is, right, my parents know the answers, and they’re all in the bible.  And you can’t argue against the bible, can you?  It’s the word of God, right?  Can’t argue with that.’

‘Sometimes,’ Sherlock observes, ‘I find that the people who appear to be the most sure about things are actually the least confident in their conclusions.’

We both stare at him, though for different reasons.  I mean, where the hell did that come from, love?  Sherlock’s never been unsure about anything in his whole life!

‘You think so?’  John-Matthew asks him.

‘I’m a scientist,’ he says.  ‘Which means I collect data and try to eradicate uncertainty.  But the nature of the Universe _is_ chaos and uncertainty.’

I’m really not sure quite what relevance this has to his earlier statement, but I think he is trying to engage the lad’s interest in physics and philosophy.  But then he continues:

‘Your parents are apparently sure of God, just as you are equally sure that they will not understand your desire to explore the world.  However, both conclusions are spurious until you have collected and tested the data.’

He fixes John-Matthew with a quizzical stare.

‘You mean, I should just go and ask them?’

‘Knowledge elicitation,’ Sherlock agrees.  ‘The foundation of all enquiry into the nature of things.’

‘I wonder if maybe God made me curious deliberately,’ the boy conjectures.

‘Exactly,’ Sherlock says, sipping at his tin mug.  ‘How can anybody assume any course of action is the sole one, in the face of the Ineffable?’

‘God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,’ I point out, digging up the only remotely religious quote I can muster.

‘Whatever.  I really don’t reckon I’m meant for being a missionary,’ John-Matthew says.

We finish our tea, mulling over the unexpectedly theological turn in the conversation.  The Sherlock surprises me by pulling something out of his pocket, which he hands to the boy.  John-Matthew takes it and looks confused.

‘Keep it,’ Sherlock tells him.  ‘It’s got about fifty quid on it.  Just give them a ring sometimes, let them know you’re alright, okay?’

I have to look away.


	14. Sherlock Comes Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock explains why he took the case.

‘Sherlock, why did we come?’  We are plodding back along the top of the dyke in the middle of the afternoon.  Even my lover is starting to show signs of succumbing to the heat.  His forehead is beaded with sweat.  The girl, whose name (again, predictably) turned out to be Gaia, invited us to share a repast of cheese and onion sandwiches with dandelion leaf salad before we left.  Now the onions are repeating on me, and I’m really not sure what the dandelion leaves are going to do to Sherlock’s innards.  Still, the thing with the mobile phone was worth the walk.

‘To find the boy.’

‘Come on, any bobby on the beat with half a brain could have gone up to that copse, and found the book, and worked it out.  They didn’t need the country’s best detective.’

‘I wanted to come.  It appealed to me.’

‘You ran away from home, didn’t you?’

‘Frequently.  Doesn’t everybody?’

‘I didn’t.’  He looks surprised.  I go on.  ‘Not that I didn’t think about it a lot, believe me.  Living with Harry does that to you.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘So tell me?’

‘What?

‘About you running away?’

He shrugs.  ‘Not much to tell, really.  Best to say that often parents’ expectations of a child cannot be met.  Or do not align with the child’s own world view.’

‘They told you off a lot?’

‘They wanted me to become a barrister.’

‘Well, it’s the law.  That’s not far from what you do now, not really.  I mean, when you think about it.’  My voice trails off in response to the look he is giving me.  ‘Okay, well, maybe not, then.  Anyway, you felt sympathy with John-Matthew’s position.’

‘Something like that.  I ran away from school too.’

‘Why?’

‘It was boring.’

‘I could see that would put anybody off.’  Actually, it’s easy to understand how a child like Sherlock, so precocious and inquisitive, would quickly have been bored at even the most forward-thinking of fee-paying schools.  He was never meant for such an environment.  Which is presumably why he is pretty much self-educated, hopping from one august educational institution to another, cherry-picking whatever suited him and moving on, and certainly never bothering with anything so mundane as taking an examination.

I realise he is fumbling with my fingers, curling them in his own.  We have never walked hand in hand before.  It’s nice.

He smiles, gives a small sigh.  His eyes skim the line of the hills.  In the distance, the fairytale turrets of the castle peep above the treetops.

‘I came here when I was a child,’ he says, sounding a little distant.  ‘For a school trip, to see the castle.  I skived off, of course.  Why should I be interested in that old fossil of a castle anyway?’

‘Maybe for the dungeons,’ I suggest, aware of his delight in the macabre.  He ignored me.

‘I walked up the river and sat on the bank.  It was the strangest thing.  I’ve never felt at home anywhere, at least not until I met you.  But here, I felt like I was coming home.  Like I belonged.  I’ve never belonged anywhere, except with you.  It calmed my mind.  Can you understand that?  It made me feel peaceful, this land, this chalky place.  I don’t know why.  I’ve never been able to escape from the whirl of thoughts inside my head.  It’s so frantic in here, John, it makes me feel queasy sometimes.  There’s only one thing that’s ever allowed me quiet, one place.  Here.  Here, I can actually think straight.  Perhaps that’s why I wanted to come back.  To see if I had imagined it.’

He considers this for a long time while we walk, swinging clasped hands.

‘Did you?’ I ask him. ‘Imagine it, I mean.’

‘No.’

He smiles.  He looks relaxed. I don’t think I have ever seen him look relaxed.  It is bizarre.  And indescribably beautiful.

‘I like it here,’ he says, eventually.  ‘I definitely think we should retire here.  I could keep bees.’

‘You’re always on about keeping bees,’ I blunder, still trying to get my head around what he has just said – the part about having a peaceful mind, and the part about retiring together, which I wasn’t expecting him to remember from before.  ‘I don’t see why you can’t keep them in London.  Plenty of people have hives on their roofs these days.’

‘It’s not the same, though,’ he says.  ‘We’d need a nice garden.  You like gardening, don’t you?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘You always have a choice, my darling.’  It is the first time he has used such an affectionate term towards me, and it sends a little shiver down my spine.  Impetuously, I pull him into my arms and look up into his sky-blue-sea-green-silver eyes.

‘I will find us a cottage, and make you a garden full of flowers, and build you as many hives as you want,’ I tell him.

‘Be careful, Doctor,’ he whispers.  ‘You may be at risk of spoiling me.’

‘Since when was that a problem?’


	15. The Otter Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the boys go wild swimming, Sherlock displays the grace of an otter, and John, well, doesn't.

            He steps back from me then, and starts unbuttoning his shirt.  I watch his slim hands work the mother-of-pearl elegantly, mesmerised.  It takes me until he has divested himself of shirt and started on trousers to actually realise what he is about.

            ‘What the hell are you doing?’

            ‘It’s hot,’ he says.

            ‘Sherlock, it’s a public footpath!’

            ‘And exactly how many members of the public did we pass on our way up here?’

            I hate to admit that he as a point.

            He kicks off his shoes and tugs at the toes of his socks.

            ‘It only takes one posh housewife walking her Labrador,’ I point out, but my mouth has gone dry because his skin glows in the afternoon sun.

            He tugs off his boxers.  His cock is flushed pink and half hard.

            Okay, that’s it, I’m done.

            I am pulling at the buttons on my own shirt when he grins impishly and turns away.

            ‘What the- ! Sherlock, where are you going?’ I call after him.

            He takes a couple of loping strides through the long grass, and slithers down the river bank.

            ‘I already pointed out how hot it is,’ he calls over his shoulder.  I can see his shoulder blades, the dimples in his lower back, just above his buttocks, the muscles in his shoulders supporting a head held high.  His posture is perfect, I reflect, for about the millionth time.

            He wades in.

            I stumble to the river’s edge and watch him feeling his way, edging up to his knees and then thighs.  The hairs on his legs squiggle flat with water, droplets making crystal globes on the pale flesh.  I detect goosebumps on his forearms from the shock of the sudden cold.

            ‘What are you doing?’ I shout after him.

            ‘What does it look like?  Cooling down!’

            He hesitates, takes a lungful of air, expanding his ribs, and then plunges forward.  The muddy water foams up like cappuccino froth, closing over his head, and then he bursts through the surface again, slick and lithe and wiping his wet ringlets back from his face.  He rolls onto his back and skulls a little, and I can see his gorgeous cock floating, ghostly white under the brown water.

            ‘Come on in, the water’s lovely, as they say,’ he laughs, shivering with the cold.

            ‘Oh fuck,’ I say to myself, knowing I either have to jump in too, or look like a total wimp.  I peel the rest of my clothes off and inch my way in, stubbing a toe on a rock, taking time to swear and nearly lose my balance, sploshing about hopelessly, and then managing to take the plunge.

            The bastard laughs.

            ‘Water isn’t your favourite element, is it?’

            ‘Fuck you,’ I cough.

            I paddle towards him with all the elegance of a hedgehog on a cork.  My teeth are chattering, so I clench them.  Just to make matters worse, he frolics about me, sleek and easy, undulating through the water like an otter.  His body is a blade, perfectly shaped for ease of movement.  He ducks and dives, twisting corkscrews around me in circles while I frantically struggle to stay afloat.

            Suddenly he bobs up right in front of me, his belly brushing against mine, his cheeks beaded, his eyelashes spiked.  Water streams from his pointed chin.

            ‘Why didn’t you just tell me you can’t swim?’

            ‘Of course I can bloody swim,’ I snap at him.  ‘What does it bloody look like I’m doing, carpentry?’

            ‘John, you are _barely_ swimming,’ he says with a fond smile.  And his hands slither around my waist.

            There is a frisson about this that I remember from days when I used to go swimming with a girlfriend as a teenager.  It was the only way you could touch a girl’s skin, the only way you could see her almost naked in a legitimate way.  There was that strange, cold, jelly-like texture of underwater contact, white thighs entangling, the sneaking arousal that comes from a sanctioned boundary being pushed to its limit.

            Sherlock’s arms encircle me, but under the surface he is kicking to stay afloat.

            ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let you go under,’ he says.

            ‘I’m perfectly capable,’ I tell him.  But his body is already against mine and it is intoxicating.  We stare into each other’s eyes as we tread water, so much going on under the surface, of both the river and our skins.  He is breathing raggedly.  His eyes have taken on a deeper hue, a seriousness that I am starting to associate with desire.

            ‘I want you,’ he breathes in my ear in a hot gust.  And just to seal the deal, he tips his hips up and his erection pokes my thigh.

            ‘Oh, fuck,’ I gasp and my voice echoes off the water.

            He tows me to the bank, and we stagger up through the grass, legs like jelly from the chill.  Then he turns and takes my hands in his, and begins to walk backwards, tugging me behind him.

            ‘Sherlock, we can’t-‘

            But the look in his eyes says, ‘why not?’

            We snatch up our clothes and I follow him into a little glade of silver birches.  The grass is long and thick here, but there are mercifully no nettles.  He drops his bundle on the ground and turns to me, eyes brazen.

            ‘John.’

            ‘I-‘

            ‘I want you to fuck me.’

            It’s like being kicked in the solar plexus.  ‘What?’

            ‘I need you inside me.  I want you to take me.  Will you? Could you bear to?’

            ‘It’s not a case of _bearing_ it,’ I tell him as I pull him against me.  ‘I’ve never done it before.’

            ‘I know.’

            ‘We don’t have anything with us.’

            At that, he gives me a wily grin, bends down and pulls something out of his abandoned trouser pocket.  It is a small box made out of recycled cardboard, the kind with non-toxic ink that rubs off on your fingers when you touch it.  The kind of box that comes out of a vending machine in a public lavatory.

            ‘Oh, you bad man!’

            Inside there are three condoms and three sachets of lube.  All that bladder trouble this morning in town?  Not bladder trouble at all.  The bugger was searching for a condom machine!  He planned this all along.

            He takes the box from me.  ‘We only need one of the condoms, but we’ll use all the lube,’ he says.  ‘Do you want me to put this on you?’

            ‘It’s not that I’m not enthusiastic at the prospect, but can we have a pause for a bit of affectionate foreplay first?’

            He kisses me.  ‘Sorry, sometimes I get so turned on, I forget the niceties.’

            ‘Well, that’s always worth knowing,’ I grin.

            And then we stand there, stark naked under the shivering leaves, snogging passionately. 

            I give myself a moment to step back mentally.  Here I am, about to have sex with my best friend for the first time – I mean penetrative sex.  I’ve never had anal sex before; it’s something I have never wanted to do.  I’ve never wanted to have sex with a man before, either.  And I can’t remember the last time I did it outside.  I look at him now, at his beautiful eyes, his voluptuous mouth, his lightly muscled chest, and I want him so badly it is actually a physical pain.  I don’t know how this has happened.  

            I have watched the sunrise in the desert, and seen the monsoon in the Himalayas.  I have made love on a Cypriot beach at sunset, and flown over the Grand Canyon.  I have witnessed many of nature’s great miracles, as well as the horrors this world has to offer.  But I swear I have never seen anything more beautiful, or romantic, as Sherlock Holmes at this moment, his pale skin dappled with sunlight, the brilliance of love in his eyes.

            He lies down on his back in the grass, his head circled with a halo of daisies and campion, and holds his hand out to me.  I kneel down and slide my hand up his open thigh.  So smooth.  I want to tell him how much I love him.  I want to tell him how beautiful he is, what he means to me. But there are no words for this. I understand him now, his greed for union.  He has no words either.  When I look at his face, I see his eyes are brimming.  He feels it too.  This overwhelming thing that we have, that we share.  Only death can ever part us now.  And even that won’t be for long.  For how can I live without this?  How could either of us?

            I lie down across his body, taking my weight on my elbows, feel his belly and chest under me, feel him moan and undulate.  His hands skim my back, stroking tenderly.  We kiss, slowed by emotion.  I want this to last, I realise.  Forever, if I can make it.  I want it imprinted in my memory, this perfect moment when we are finally joined.  Who needs a bloody ceremony to prove they are One?  We have this.  Alone together under the sun, with a warm breeze on our skins, and the rest of our lives to share it.

            ‘Take me, John,’ he whispers, his voice breaking a little with emotion.  ‘Paint my insides with your name, carve your love on my soul.’

            And I do.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a sequel to this story, The Bee House, which I hope to migrate here in the next few days. Thank you so much for reading. Constructive criticism is always welcome.


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